Wednesday, April 15, 2009

My MtDNA. . .



Today, I recieved my DNA testing packet from African Ancestry by mail and I'm truly excited.

For the past few years, I have been struggling with the decision to take this test. The source of my struggle was emotionally based. The test I'm taking will trace my maternal lineage from my mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and through to my great great grandmother Dinah Brown-Rounds. The source of my conflict lies in the stories of my great-great grandmother's heritage. My mother's family is very racially mixed with caucasion and possibly Native American ancestry. According to family oral history, Dinah Rounds was bi-racial and has native American heritage in her lineage. I honestly don't believe that she has a Native American background because this is a common coping mechanism within the black community to pyschologically deal with the violence committed against our women by white men. Another topic for another posting. I am truly hoping that my great-great grandmother's mitochondrial DNA will reflect an African ancestor. I'm not exactly sure what ethnic group that branch of my family will originate from. This is what makes this new discovery I'm about to embark on the more exciting. The uncertainty of it all. The discovery of who my women folk are, the knowing of who my kinfolk are beyond the shores of America hopefully into the continent of Africa.

Spiritually speaking, my belief is that this discovery will lead to another level of my own spiritual development. I believe that knowing my African heritage of both my parents families will enable me to understand, connect and become more aligned with my spirituality and my purpose in this life. It will also help me to understand some other spiritual things that I see in my family that I may have inherited. This is a path I have been actively journeying for the last two years.

It will be sometime before I can share the results of my tests on my blog because I will be sharing the results with my family first. Look for an update in July 2009. Until then. . .

Family Griot

1 comments:

Ms Vicky said...

You know you just 'frosted" me don't you 7 tees.. My heart was jumping all over the place..Then you said July